


Forever is a long time, but I wouldn't mind spending it by your side

by StarlitShadowHuntress



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 18:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13129944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlitShadowHuntress/pseuds/StarlitShadowHuntress
Summary: Barry Bluejeans has lost a lot in his life, but that's alright, because he's got love.A story of Barry's life, from his first meeting to his forever with the woman he loves.A secret santa gift fic for @taakos-hat on Tumblr! Thanks to @kravalicious for organizing it this year!Title taken from He Is We: I Wouldn't Mind





	Forever is a long time, but I wouldn't mind spending it by your side

Barry meets Lup and Taako Tacco during freshman orientation.

Of course, he doesn’t know their names. Just their faces. Pretty and Elven.

Granted, it was no surprise that with an explosion that large, all eyes were on the twins.

Barry looked at both of them, peeved, to say the least. They high-fived each other and laughed at their student leader, a poor halfling who really didn’t deserve the mountain of paperwork they were about to fill out, as they desperately tried to douse the flames.

Barry rolled his eyes. So they were that kind of student.

It’s not that Barry hated to party. He loved party atmospheres, but hated how they could bring out the worst and most vulnerable in people.

He’d dealt with their type before, in high school, the kind who breezed through by being so popular due to their odd but enticing personalities, who never learned how to work hard. Who didn't need to study or work hard to do well in school. Both of them were decked out in bangles and bling. They each had one earring of a matching set. One of them was wearing aviators and the other had on a leather jacket.

Barry sighed. He had dealt with their type as bullies, before, and he would get through his four-year degree in theoretical magic with a minor in practical alchemical applications if it killed him.

Looking at how amused the two were by their prank, he smiled to himself.

Those two losers are going to be kicked out for not being good enough for such a demanding university program by the end of the year.

~~~~

Barry groans as his distillate comes out tinged slightly pink. He disconnects it from the main setup after killing the flame and waiting for the potion to cool a little longer. Jessica, the TA, heads over.

“What’s ailing you, Barry?”

“Distillate came out pink.”

She smiles. “It happens. Try it again, clean your setup, and throw some more powdered copper and ammonia into the original flask until your starting potion is purple.”

“It was purple before!” He insists. “It turns pink as it heats up and starts making distillate! Can’t I just, like, start over?”

Jessica shrugs. “I mean, you do have time, but you also have a flawlessly prepared starting potion that just needs a little more love and attention before it distills right.”

“What do you think I should do?”

Jessica smiles coyly, turning on her heel to walk away. “Just follow your heart, dear!”

“Just follow your heart, like that’s not the worst suggestion to give to someone with anxiety.” Barry mumbles as he cleans out his setup and prepares to redo his distillation. “More love and attention, just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The twin whom Barry has come to know as Taako stops at his bench. Barry knows Taako, can tell him apart from his sister, Lup. Taako is always blinged out, even when he's in a lab. Taako always has flawless eyeliner, all sharp edges and perfect shapes.

Taako's distillate is completely clear, and he makes sure to swirl his flask so that Barry can see just how perfect it is.

“How’s your potion, Barold?” He asks, and Barry is so sure that he’s leering at him behind those buckteeth.

“It’s a potion, that’s for sure.” He snaps. “Just gotta give it some more love and attention before I try and distill it again.”

Taako smiles. “Have you tried macking on your flask yet?”

“Excuse me?” Barry splutters, clumsy hands nearly hitting the expensive glass setup before him.

Taako gives him a look. “You know, have you tried kissing your flask, yet?”

“Why would I ever do that?”

“Because Lup and I do it all the time.” Taako shrugs, pointing a finger over to his left. That’s where he and Lup have their stations, and if Barry pushes up his glasses, he can see that there’s red lipstick marks all over Lup’s glassware. “Maybe that’s why we’re so much better at this than you are?”

“Isn’t that lipstick the worst thing to clean off, though?”

Taako laughs. “Yeah, right. Like we don’t know how to remove some makeup.” He winks at Barry, before waving a hand over his flask. Barry sees it turn from pink to dark purple.

“Besides, this is what your starting material is supposed to look like before you distill it, Barold.” He waves his hand again, and Barry’s flask is back to that disappointing shade of pink. “Match that colour, and you’ll get a clear solution. I say toss half a grain of powdered copper in that, follow it with about a dram of ammonia, and you’ll be in that good starting range.”

Barry follows what Taako suggests, but only needs half a dram before he’s matched the colour Taako suggested. He hears giggling from the twins’ bench and shoots a glare at them. Taako shrugs. He mouths out words that Barry has to decipher.

“I guess that works. Now, kiss it.” seems to be what he's saying.

Barry puts his hands on his hips. Taako nudges his sister, who turns away from her own distillation to lift up one of many flasks covered in red marks.

“Kiss it! It’s lucky!” Taako mouths again, more insistently.

Barry, begrudgingly, holds his potion up to his face and delivers a small peck to the body of the flask. Taako nods, appreciative.

It distills flawlessly.

~~~~

“So, Barry Bluejeans?” Taako asks one day after lectures are over.

“Yeah?”

“Where’d that last name come from?”

Barry fixes Taako with a look of exasperation, before motioning at his pants.

“I’m gonna give you two guesses on that.”

“That’s not your real name.”

“No, Bluejeans definitely is my last name.”

Taako looks at him. Something clicks, because he straightens and his lip curls. “Bull. Shit. There’s no way you’re-”

“Oh, yeah.” Barry laughs. “Barry Bluejeans, descendant of Rex Bluejeans, the inventor of fabric dyes that didn’t wash out.”

Taako looks at him with a look of disgust. “I can’t believe that my friend is the descendant of the literal worst person in the world.”

“Hey!”

Taako smirks, lowering his voice and making it gravelly. “Hi, I’m Barold Bluejeans, great-great-great-great-great grandson of Rex Bluejeans? Y’know, the guy who invented jean dye, then proceeded to wear double denim until the day he died? That Barold Bluejeans.”

“You’re the worst friend ever, Taako.”

Taako laughs, dangly earrings clicking against each other.

“Yeah, right. You’re gonna be coming to ol’ Taako for advice on everything before you know it. I’m the best friend you’re ever gonna get.”

~~~~

Here's the thing. The twins are smart. Crazy smart. Probably better than Barry.

Barry knows this, now.

There's Taako, who can easily charm the heels off of anybody he pleases. There's Taako, who can flutter his eyelashes and get the names and numbers of twenty different guys. There's Taako, who can master a spell and only burn up one slot while doing it. There's Taako, who sometimes brings in fresh baking to lecture and passes some to Barry, just because he had the time to bake some food over the weekend.

"Taako," Barry says one Monday, "we've got a midterm in our next class and you spent the weekend baking instead of studying?"

The elf shrugs. "I was just stress baking, m'dude."

"You stress bake instead of studying?"

"Hey, everyone's got their habits. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, Barold." Taako says, shoving a brownie into Barry's mouth.

It's a fucking good brownie.

Taako aces the midterm, Lup as well.

Oh yes, Lup.

Here is the girl who always shows up with messy hair and bright red lipstick. Here is that same girl, lighting a tree on fire because she was angry at someone for something they said. Here she is again, kissing all of her glassware for luck in labs. Lup, who leaps in to protect her brother. Lup, who could swindle someone with a smile and a wink and a wave of her fingers. Lup, with the razor sharp intellect and cutting insults should you cross her.

Barry realizes that he never should have underestimated them.

~~~~

The History of Wandless Magic: Fundamentals in Theory, Technique, and Applications, is Barry’s option course for this term.

It’s just his luck that the twins are in his lecture for that, as well.

Lup Tacco is relentless in her pursuit of knowledge and runs her mouth a mile a minute when she’s interested.

Taako Tacco makes dick jokes at every opportunity, especially when he’s bored. And he gets bored often.

Barry has never seen Taako interested for more than ten minutes at a time, and Lup has never once fallen asleep in lecture.

Which is exactly why, on the Tuesday where Taako sits up straighter, and Lup trudges into the classroom, Barry knows something is incredibly wrong.

Taako-or maybe not-Taako, he’s not too sure, catches him staring on more than a few occasions. The first time, the twin smiles. The second time, they wink. But by the fifth time they’ve caught Barry staring, they’ve grown exasperated and flip him off.

He stays behind after lecture to confront them. He has another history of magic lecture in ten minutes, but he’s getting to the bottom of this nonsense.

“What’s going on with you two?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Taako’s body insists.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?” Lup’s voice asks. Neither of them answered his question.

Barry points a finger accusingly at both of them. “Don’t try to avoid this! You’re both out of sorts, like there's something wrong with the both of you!”

“How so?” Taako asks, yawning loud and exaggerated.

Barry takes a close look at both of the twins. Something felt off in class, but looking at them now, it's like they're back to normal. Well, as normal as the Tacco twins can be.

“You're back to normal, now.” he says, defeated.

Lup cocks her hip. “Um, excuse you, we always were, Barry?”

Barry shrugs. “Whatever. I'm late to my next class. I gotta go.”

Taako and Lup exchange a high five as he goes. Taako wraps an arm around his sister.

“Five percent of our grade based on attentiveness in class is absolutely bullshit, darling, but I'm glad we have each other.”

“Good switch back there, Taako.” Lup winks.

She watches as her face breaks into a grin.

“No problem at all, Taako.” Her voice says back to her. “Now, let's go get you that A in Fundamentals of Transmutation, shall we?”

~~~~

Come second year, Barry doesn’t see the twins very often. He’s in a different stream than they are. It makes sense for them to not see each other ever again.

But sometimes, Barry hears an explosion at the lab bench across from his, or hears someone muttering a terrible pun in lecture, and wishes that it came from one of the twins.

He still kisses his glassware, for that extra burst of luck.

~~~~

Lup beats him to a research position under his favourite professor.

Barry is torn.

See, it’s not like Lup doesn’t deserve it, and he’s definitely proud of her, beyond what words can say, for sure.

But he’s a little mad that he doesn’t get to work under the prof, while she does. Taako’s got an internship away from the institution, somewhere bright and colourful. Barry has to admit that he deserves it, too.

It’s okay, though. He’s been offered a job as a lab TA. He’ll take that until he can get into research.

And he does, a year later. Just not with either of the twins.

Or anyone, really.

He’s alone. He’s used to it, but at least he doesn’t have to interact with anyone aside from the professor on a daily basis.

At the end of the summer, there’s a research seminar that he has to attend. He had to prepare a ten minute presentation on what he had been doing all summer long. His prof straightened his tie for him and patted his shoulder.

“You can do this!” She had said, encouragingly, as Barry fidgeted with the sleeves of his suit.

Public speaking was not one of Barry’s strong suits. He had taken his Xanax before this event, but so far, it didn’t feel like it was working.

Polite applause jolted him back to where he was standing. Oh, right. It was his turn, now.

“Hi, everyone. Folks call me Barry, and I’m here today to walk you through the transition of magic from theoretical spells to practical applications, focusing specifically on practical alchemy.”

The rest of his ten minutes passed in a blur. Before he knew it, he had gone through all of his cue cards, and was accepting polite handshakes from research heads. There are light refreshments, and Barry’s making use of that table as much as he can to politely exit conversations where everybody seems interested in what he’s going to do in the future, like he has a clue. He’s just an undergrad that got lucky, he doesn’t have a twenty year plan set in stone.

He meets Lup at the refreshments table when he goes to grab a flute of sparkling water. She catches his hand before he can grab his drink.

“Oh, hello, Lup.” he says, looking up at her, “You look stunning.”

And she does. She’s in a red blazer that brings out her flawless skin, matching red lipstick and nails that look like they were just done this morning. She’s got platform wedges on, not like she needs them to be taller. She’s got at least a full head of height over Barry, at this point.

She smiles. “Thank you, Barold. Nice nerd-talk up there.” She tips her head to where Taako’s standing. “Bro was so sure you were going to fumble the mic. I’m glad you didn’t.”

Barry chuckles. “I’m glad I didn’t, either. Thanks for the compliment. Your presentation was great. I did have a question about the environmental side effects of elemental evocation, though, if you don’t mind?”

Lup grabs a canapé from the tray. “Not at all. Let’s talk science.”

When the event has died down from “businessmen trying to get the best and brightest working for their companies” to just “students and their profs celebrating their successes”, somebody pulls an aux cord out of nowhere and starts blasting a fun mixtape. Lup looks to Barry and grabs his hand.

“This is like, my favourite song. Dance with me!”

Barry, being dragged by his friend to the middle of the hall, has no real choice but to follow her.

“I’ve gotta warn you, I haven’t taken dance classes since a gym module in high school.”

Lup laughs. “Does it look like I care? Let’s boogie, nerd!”

Barry almost trips over Lup on more than one occasion, and she catches him each time, with a playful laugh.

Lup wins an award that year, for her groundbreaking presentation. Barry wins the student nominated award of Best TA. Taako gets his name published in a paper.

The three of them get accepted into the IPRE’s demanding program.

~~~~

Barry watches as the Starblaster zooms away from whatever was chasing them, as a black opal mass gets smaller and smaller behind them. Captain Davenport takes a deep breath once he’s sure that it isn’t giving chase.

“So,” Magnus begins, “what the fuck was that?”

“I have no idea.” The Captain responds.

Barry turns to look at the twins. They’re holding hands, knuckles white.

Merle Highchurch, the head biologist, shrugs. “Let’s take a few minutes by ourselves to think on what we just saw, and brainstorm together afterwards.”

“What is there to brainstorm?” Lucretia, the chronicler asks. “Don’t get me wrong, Captain Davenport, but I don’t think we’re gonna be able to go back.”

The Captain shakes his head. “Let’s not risk it. We’re going to follow our mission plan. Let’s land, and then figure things out from there.”

They land on a plane of only animals.

Barry, Lup and Taako learn to speak Mongoose. It's a very fun language, all clicks and squeaks with the occasional chirp. They learn the common language of the animals, and take that back with them to the rest of the crew. They leave Mongoose to themselves though, no matter how curious Magnus is. It’s their own little secret. You have to earn the right to learn the language.

The mongoose move around often, to keep themselves clean and tidy. Barry, Lup and Taako each take some babies into pouches they made from their red robes to help the family move house.

Barry watches Magnus come back from training with the Powerbear, bloody and bruised.

They lose their lovely little mongoose family at the end of the year.

~~~~

Six years into their exhausting journey, Lup catches Barry alone.

It’s not a great time to catch him, granted. Because he’s crying.

“Barry? Are you alright?”

Barry resists the urge to snipe at her.

He sniffles, instead. “I just need a moment.”

“Need to be alone, or do you want my company?”

Barry shuffles. “If you want to stay, I won’t stop you.”

Lup sighs, and sits down next to him.

“So, uh. Taako and I usually just get what’s wrong with each other and don’t have to say it out loud, but I can’t read you the way I can with him. So, what’s up with you?”

“You remember that mongoose family?”

“Course I do.”

“And how they’re probably dead, now, because we couldn’t get the light?”

“Well, they’ve been swallowed by whatever’s chasing us, so I guess that’s a safe assumption to make.”

“It’s a terrible thought. I’m hella fucked up by it.”

“By them dying?”

“That, and that we weren’t able to save them by grabbing the light.”

“I understand that.”

“I really could have just punched the Powerbear and grabbed the light.”

  
“You really think you’d be able to punch that giant bear?”

“If I had tried, maybe we could have saved them.”

“You want to save everyone, so the Powerbear getting biffed in the face would have just been, like, collateral damage?”

Barry shakes his head and sniffles again. “It’s just that, we’ve got so much on our shoulders. It was our job to explore the planar systems, but then the approaching dark mass made us reconsider our priorities, and now we’re on the run, desperately trying to get the light while avoiding being swallowed by that darkness. It scares me. A lot.”

“Well, considering I was run clean through by one of its spikes last time, I think I can relate to that fear.”

“How can you be so calm about it?”

Lup sighs, puts an arm on Barry’s shoulder.

“I’m not calm. I just pretend like I am.”

“You lie to yourself?”

“I know myself. I lie to everyone around me so that they know what they have to do to carry on.”

“How do you mean?”

Lup hugs her knees close to her chest. “The interviewers, they always ask you the same questions. You remember the ones? What got you into the study of magic, why did you consider taking it as far as you did, how do you use magic as an extension of you, instead of an enhancement of your ability, garbage like that? I always lied when they asked. I know why I got into evocation. I watched my brother get hurt by bullies and I had to stop it. I watched as wagon after wagon of travellers refused to take us on, how hard they worked to separate us, to get us alone and vulnerable. He worked so hard to keep us alive with his magic, using his spell slots to keep us from starving, I had to repay the favour. We needed each other and depended on it.”

Barry blinks. “I- I never realized it. I’m real sorry.”

Lup continues. “We snipe about wasting things. We do a day to day inventory of food. We aced our survival tests in training, because we were used to starting with nothing. We love shopping, but still sew our clothing back together for the fifth time because who knows if we’re going to get new ones, ever?”

“I never thought of it that way. I’m sorry.”

Lup pulls her other arm around Barry. She’s hugging him, now.

“Hey, Barold?”

“Yeah?”

“You called me calm, before.”

“Yeah, I- I think that’s the wrong classification.”

“How dare you try and box me in?”

Lup’s tone makes Barry giggle. “How foolish of me. Of course.”

“We’re gonna get through this, Bluejeans. Even if it seems impossible. We’re gonna get through.”

“Yeah, I guess we kinda have to, huh?”

“What’s that thing that Jessica always told us?”

Barry smiles. “Follow your heart?” he chirps, in Mongoose.

Lup nods. “Exactly. Let’s keep doing that.”

Lup and Barry keep that conversation to themselves. Aside from a few more “how are you feelings” scattered here and there in their conversation, nothing really changes.

Barry knows that there’s more to the twins than meets the eye. He had assumed that he knew everything about them. He knows how wrong he is.

He likes that thought. He likes Lup.

Later that cycle, when they’re on the run from the black streaks, Cappenport flies them away from the newly dubbed “Hunger”. Barry sees Taako step to the back window of the Starblaster, sees him point at the dark mass. 

“Hey, look!” Says Taako, voice cracking as he watches the Hunger descend upon the prime material plane, another plane they couldn’t save, not without the light.

“Vore!” He calls, and he laughs to himself.

And then Barry feels himself shifting, knows the rest of the crew is, too.

He’s back on the other side of the ship, standing across the deck from the twins, who are side by side, holding hands. Taako's still laughing.

Barry looks to Taako first, then to Lup.

Her eyes are teary. He knows that Taako’s joke hurt.

Truthfully, it hurt everyone. Once the ship is in a safe place, they throw themselves on the twins, making the most comfortable group hug Barry’s experienced in a long time.

~~~~

Barry realizes he’s got a crush on Lup pretty quickly into that next cycle.

It’s so stupid, he thinks. She flips her hair over her shoulder once, and he has to force himself to look away from the motion, like a chump. Unbelievable.

She’s so gorgeous, he thinks, as she sleeps on a chair with her mouth open, snoring.

She wears crop tops in the summer and he has to look her in the eyes, but then he loses his train of thought when he realizes that she’s looking back at him.

He stays up late at night, bright red, with his face buried in his hands.

He has a dream that she was over at his house for dinner, spending time with his family and extended family, and that they all love her. Dinner in the dream was simple, just spaghetti and meatballs that she and Taako cooked, but Barry wakes up craving tomatoes and cheese and garlic.

Barry wakes up wanting that dream to be a reality more than he’d ever admit.

He tells himself to follow his heart often. He ends up following Lup more than he probably should.

~~~~

Barry gets shocked by the moody little robot twice in one minute.

Being electrocuted is not a pleasant feeling. Take licking a fantasy nine-volt battery, and then spread that feeling to reach past your tongue. Spread that feeling to the rest of your body, starting from your hands and coursing through the rest of you quickly.

It’s uncomfortable. Lup laughs at him. Barry pokes her in an attempt to discharge himself. It doesn’t work. She keeps laughing at him.

Barry looks at the little bot in his hands. Thinks back to first year alchemy lab.

“Well, Jaxx, don’t say I didn’t warn you about not cooperating, little buddy.”

He gives the robot a quick little peck.

Barry yelps as a shock courses through him again, this one considerably stronger than the ones before.

Lup giggles. “Barry, what the heck was that about? You got a thing for ‘droids that you’ve finally decided to come clean about?”

He shrugs. “Kissing my glassware for luck used to work. I- I guess it’s different for bots on this plane.”

He gets another zap and hears Lup snort.

“I started doing that in lab because of you, you know.” He grumbles. “I did it when I was in research, too. Told my students in lab if they wanted a good score, they’d peck their flasks once in a while, for luck.”

Lup flips her hair over a shoulder. “Wow, really?” she asks, “You took advice from little old me and spread it onto your other students? Was I that charming?”

Barry looks her dead in the eyes. “Yes.”

Lup mutters an “Oh.” before going quiet.

Barry gets shocked again.

“Jaxx. C’mon, work with me.” Barry pleads

A little screen on the android lights up and displays two symbols that Barry recognizes instantly when put together like that.

“<3”

Barry takes a quick glance at Lup, who isn’t looking at him or the bot. Thankfully. He taps the side of Jaxx’s soul container. “Shut up, you little stinker.”

“<3”

~~~~

Barry works himself to the bone trying to research and understand the Hunger in the beach year.

Him falling asleep on top of Lup was definitely bound to happen. It had to be, with how often they worked together.

Lup smelled nice. Barry smelled like six espresso shots all taken in the span of one hour.

Magnus screamed at them as a wake up call the next morning. Barry fell out of his chair and onto the floor, Lup following after losing her pillow.

Barry jolted awake, scrubbing at his eyes. “Magnus, what the fuck?”

Magnus laughed, until Lup solidly punched him in the stomach.

“Lemme sleep, you big lug.” was all she said, before dragging Barry down by his hoodie to keep sleeping on the floor.

Barry saw Magnus, looking playfully scandalized. He flipped him off.

Magnus just shoots Barry two finger guns and runs off.

~~~~

Over the years, Barry learns a lot about each of his fellow teammates. Sometimes, the laws of physics and magical theory failed. The crew became his own set of constants.

None of them ever mentioned it, but after so long, the Starblaster was their home.

~~~~

Realizing he’s in love with Lup, instead of it being just a silly crush, is a slow process.

The road to realization starts with Barry memorizing the way she takes her coffee, takes a left turn when he smiles at her voice, and comes back around, forming a full thought, when he thinks about just how deep she loves.

Of course, they have bigger fish to fry. They need to be better, stronger, and smarter for the next cycle. They need to keep the Light of Creation as far from the Hunger as they can. They need to make sure at least one of them survives the next cycle to carry on their journey. Those are things that need to be done. There’s no acceptable margin of error when it comes to any of those things.

Taako tells Barry, that year on the beach, that he has time. Barry tells Taako that he won’t act on his feelings until he knows without a doubt that Lup feels the same about him. Taako grunts. Barry shrugs. That’s just how he feels on the matter.

Barry knows that Lup would always have more time than him, back at home. Elven aging, and whatnot. He knows that in any other circumstance, he’d probably be dead by now, and Lup would still be in her prime, strong and beautiful, and setting something to flames.

He has time, but this isn’t the time to say he likes Lup.

He tries to keep their relationship as professional as possible. Lup doesn’t need any more stress. He knows he wouldn’t appreciate it, if he were in her position.

Stress is bad. It’s very bad. They have enough of it already.

Barry’s a scientist and magician first and foremost. He needs to collect observations before forming his conclusions, and biased observations are just as bad as not having done any at all.

~~~~

The team is its own set of constants, but Lup is formulae. Easy to solve for what’s there and what isn’t, given the cues. He checks in on her every once in a while, makes sure she’s doing okay. If she isn’t, he does what he can to cheer her up.

She does the same, bakes him brownies and grills burgers when he’s had a rough time doing his “nerd nonsense”. Barry’s happy with it. He’s not going to push for something he can’t have. Not when he knows how busy Lup is, not when he’s not sure how she would ever react.

Not when he’s scared of her response, be it positive or negative.

They lose Merle, year after long year, again and again. Sometimes, he doesn’t even say hello to the group upon rematerializing before he re-enters parlay and dies again. It’s not until he’s died a few cycles in a row that Magnus has the idea to physically pin him down for long enough to talk to him.

It’s wearing all of them down, Barry knows.

He’s in love with Lup, and being in love means that you don’t throw additional stress onto a situation when the person you love is already under stress.

~~~~

At the Legato Conservatory, Professor Kris, who Barry and Lup are studying under, asks both of them for musical experience.

Lup raises her hand. “I used to play the violin?”

“How long ago, my dear?” They ask.

Lup laughs, nervously. “Um, probably a good hundred years ago?”

The professor looks at her, mutters something about Elven lifespans, and hands Lup a violin case.

“Show me what you’ve got, I guess.”

Lup takes the violin, puts it together, and sets it to her shoulder.

She hasn’t even put bow to string before she’s stopped by the professor tutting.

“I’m that bad, huh?”

“It’s not that, it’s, it’s, yeah. It’s that.” The professor sighs, defeatedly. “You’re that bad. Where did you learn to hold the violin like that?”

“Um, I busked for money as a kid. I kind of like, taught myself to make it sound good?”

The professor shakes their head and sits down. “Okay.” They say. “Let’s hear you play a song as if you were busking, I guess.”

Lup shrugs her hair over her shoulder, and Barry tries not to stare as she plays.

It’s definitely rough playing, but Barry knows the song she’s playing after just a few seconds.

“That’s the song that we danced to, back when we were in school.” He mutters, once Lup has finished. She nods.

“One of the only songs I still know how to play, can you believe it?”

Kris shakes their head. “I mean, at least you know how to play something. I need to fix your technique, and teach you how to properly vibrato, and intonation is definitely less than solid, but I mean, you’ve got something we can work with.”

Barry jumps a little when Kris turns to him. “As for you. You’re going to learn how to play the piano, and by my own reputation, we are going to get you projected if it kills me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I bet on the voidfish. We’re getting both of you projected.”

Barry and Lup sit in the Starblaster, trying their hardest to write a good song.

“So, hear me out.” Barry will say, before humming out a bar or two. Lup will nod and Barry will write it down, or she’ll propose a different melody, and Barry will consider that one.

“God, I wish we could just dance, like Merle is doing.” Lup mentions, one night where nothing either of them are suggesting seems to work.

“Kris told us to find something we wanted to express. A story that we want to tell. What stories are left for us to tell?”

“There’s gotta be one out there, somewhere, Barry.”

“But it’s up to us to find it and tell it?”

Lup grins. “So, stop me if you’ve heard this one, but a group of travellers get on a ship for a journey that they originally thought wouldn’t take long at all, but-”

“Oh, c’mon, Lup.”

“What?” she yawns, “I think I’m funny.”

Barry takes his glasses off and thuds his forehead against the desk. “Come on, brain. Be smart for once. Write some music. Think of something, anything. Come on, brain. Come on.”

He turns around, and sees Lup passed out on his chair.

He smiles a little, and tosses his jean jacket over her, like a little blanket.

The next morning, they pretend like nothing happened, and that afternoon, they finalize the sheet music to their song.

It was so simple.

It’s love. It’s always been love.

~~~~

When Lup tells Barry that she’s in love with him, he’s so happy.

They talk about everything.

“When’d you first catch feelings?”

“Like, sometime around that year where you caught me crying.”

“For me, it was when you kept getting shocked by the robot and decided to try and solve your problem by smooching it.”

“Wait, so that year on the beach...”

“Oh yeah, I was pining for you, hard. The glasses stunt I pulled on our last night on the beach? Totally just me trying to get you to see my fast reflexes.”

“Wait. I told Taako about my feelings for you during that year on the beach.”

Lup looks puzzled. “I’ve told him about you almost every day since those robots. He never said anything about you telling him stuff, though.”

“So we’ve been pining after each other for-”

“For about thirty or so years, for me. Around fourty, for you?”

“Jeez.”

“Hachi machi, indeed.”

“I can’t believe your brother is that good at keeping secrets.”

Lup shrugs. “He surprises even me, sometimes. I think he just wanted us to figure it out for ourselves.”

Barry tries to adjust his glasses, but just ends up knocking them askew. Lup laughs and fixes them for him.

“I’ve always wanted to do that, I was just so worried it would be weird.”

"Taako always told me that we had time, which was something that a lot of people in love didn't have. I guess he was kind of right."

"I guess that's why he was also so impatient."

Barry smiles. Lup grabs his hand.

“Barry. We’ve gone through a lot. We’ve been to moons, whole entire planar systems in the space-time continuum which should defy all that we learned in school. You’ve been with me for some of the most important events in my life, and now, here I am, with you. Here we are, together, right now in this moment.”

Barry nods.

“I, I can’t think of anything to follow that up with, Lup. I don’t have smooth lines running out of me a mile a minute.”

Lup shifts so she’s closer. Barry sees her eyes up close, glittery and beautiful. “Barry, I would like to kiss you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. I’d like that a lot.”

~~~~

Loving Lup, knowing that she loves him back, is the best feeling in the world. The years after the year with the voidfish are easier, knowing she’s by his side, knowing that they’re in love, knowing that Taako can, for the first time in thirty-odd years, not have to hear Lup telling him about how cute Barry is.

Barry and Lup laugh about it. Taako’s probably more relieved they got together than they are.

~~~~

They make it a point to get married on every plane where it is safe enough to get married, from then on.

Their weddings are sometimes small, and at other times large and elaborate, depending on how they’re feeling. Taako and Lup always bake a cake, although the design and flavour of it change each year and Barry finds himself looking forward to cycles, just so that he can get married again and again to the woman he loves.

Merle is the only real religious man, so while Cappenport, as Captain, is allowed to officiate, he switches off with Merle each year.

In those years where Merle is relieved of his duties as officiant, he skips around with a basket of flowers, tossing a handful of petals into the face of any unsuspecting guest, spilling pollen over their fancy robes. It’s cute, Barry and Lup agree. The old dwarf makes the perfect flowermerle.

He does it sometimes when he officiates, too. He pronounces them married, and then before they can kiss, he grabs fistfuls of flowers and chucks them in their faces.

"Flowermerle returns!" Magnus whoops triumphantly, before Barry and Lup share a kiss, before Magnus gets a mouthful of aster courtesy of Capp'nport.

They usually don’t bother with proposals and the nonsense associated with planning a wedding. They know that they love each other, and that’s enough.

Barry remembers his mother, though. Knows she would never forgive him if he didn’t actually propose to Lup before getting married at least once.

On one of the planes that they visit, there’s a lovely jewellery shop that he sneaks into momentarily.

The first time Barry proposes to Lup with a real ring, she doesn't talk to him for an hour.

And while Barry can understand that a question that big, with a real ring, does sometimes take time to process, he doesn’t exactly appreciate how she just disappeared like that.

He finds her in their shared room. He knows she’s there. He knocks.

“Lup? Do you need some space?”

“Yes please, Beans. Sorry, babe.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry for expecting you to make this decision.”

Lup laughs through the door. “Of course. How dare you repeat the same question you’ve been asking for the past seven years.”

Barry understands what Lup probably means to say.

“I’ll just go, then. Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

Lup says yes, of course. But not without first telling Barry off for spending so much on her.

“It’s too valuable, babe. This, I- I can’t take this. That’s a glittery, huge-ass rock on some shiny-ass metal. You remember how I dressed in school, never had anything actually extravagant in my life. I think this is too much.”

“I think it’s not enough. I love you, Lup. Nothing will change that. You deserve it. Don’t even think of it as something you can’t take. It’s a promise that I’m making to you.”

“How cheesy, Beans.”

“Lup, I love you. That’s never going to change.”

~~~~

When the going gets tough, Barry thinks of Lup. Thinks of her love. Knows that come what may, he will always have that.

Barry thinks of his family as he becomes a lich. Thinks of the years spent with them, of how much he wants to protect them.

The first thing he sees as a lich is his dead wife’s body. He looks up, and sees his wife, now, also a lich. Relief floods his system. He sees his brother, standing at the bottom of the hill. Gives him a nod. Sinks back into his body.

Everything might not be okay, but it’s going to be, eventually.

He just has to keep trying.

~~~~

Lup wears his ring when she leaves.

The last thing Barry Bluejeans remembers is Taako blasting him with magic, and then he dies.

His lich form buys a sketchy looking growth tube and grows a new body. He plants a kiss on it as he throws his genetic information into the tube.

He remembers absolutely nothing when he wakes up in a body for the first time, and dies clueless.

He starts using his coin, then.

He sets up magical wards, and enchants his coin to give him a new name with each new body, to keep sleuths off of his trail.

“Your name is Jess Ka,” the coin says, “and you were named after a TA that your parents loved in college.”

“Your name is Kris. You were named after a great musician.”

“Your name is Barry Bluejeans, but you go by Sildar Hallwinter these days, and you like to fight.”

“Your name is Barry Bluejeans. You are afraid of the dark. Your very favourite thing in the world is swimming in very cold water on a very hot day.”

~~~~

"Is there something you want to tell me, Beans?" Lup asks, one morning, after she’s gotten her body back.

Barry scratches his nose. "Well, it depends on what you're referring to. A lot has gone down in the past ten years when you were, well, not here, you know."

Lup sits next to him, and pats his hand.

“Darling?”

"Lup, honey, you've gotta understand. When I first started being fleshy again, I had no idea that I had to lose my memories. I had no idea why my memories were even being erased, to be honest. I just thought Lucretia was going rogue on us, you know?"

"I can't relate, because I was stuck in my umbrella, but I can understand it. Go on, babe."

"Well, the first time I became fleshy again, I knew that I was missing something huge. The necromancers didn't tell me about the possible memory loss side effects that came with growing a new body, especially because nobody knew they had been voidfished, so imagine my surprise when all I could feel was that I was missing something huge, but I couldn't remember what it was or how I got it."

"Confused, clearly."

"Yes, love. I came out of that tub not even knowing what my name was. It was lucky that I had written a reminder to collect DNA before leaving for the rest of Faerun, or my lich form would be my permanent form, by now. I lost that body somewhere in the sea, because I had forgotten how to swim. I couldn't even remember the basics of swimming, let alone the fact that Taako had taught me. So, the next time I fleshed myself out, I enchanted a coin to tell me who i was and what I was missing, but I gave so much information that everything came out static on that coin aside from "Your name is Barry Bluejeans and you are a lich in a body, and you are in love. stick some DNA in that necromancer tube before you leave." So naturally, of course, the first thing I did in that body was-"

"Fall in love with somebody?" Lup cackles. "Babe. that's absolutely fuckin hilarious."

"It's not!" He insists, before seeing her face and smiling. "Okay," he admits. "I guess it is a little silly."

"Was the first person you fell in love with hot?" Lup asks, curiously.

"Weeeelllll, they were, but nowhere near as beautiful as you."

“Aw, Beans. You flatter me.”

“I didn’t know any better!”

“Did you think Taako was cute when you met him again?”

Barry splutters, incredulous. "I mean, well, actually, the first time I met Taako after this whole memory wipe, when we were taking the job from Gundren, I had thought that he was cute, for no apparent reason. I thought I was gonna be able to ask him out after finishing our job. It was only after I died and got lich-i-fied again that I realized why I had been slightly attracted. I figured you would have laughed at me.”

Lup smiles. “Not enough twin in your life? Don’t blame you for trying.”

“Honey!”

Lup wraps her arms around him. She’s wearing her ring again. “I love you.” She says, and it sounds like a promise. Barry nods.

“I love you, too.”

Barry Bluejeans has loved and lost a lot in his life. It’s alright, though. He’s got love. He's in love. That’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Happy holidays!  
> (Please don't actually kiss your glassware, it's gross and might get you sick)


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